The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1887-12-25
out any ~abnogation Of self or sacrifice Of self
interest, their defence lies simply In their
own rood fellowship.
Volapuk and Chinook.

We ave received from Mr. bAMUKh
HuKBsoH a copy OF his convenient and lucid
primer OF the volspuk jargon, and have de-
voted to the subject such investigation as
circumstances warranted.
In calling the volapdk q jargon We mean
no disrespeot either to Father JOHANN MAR
TIN SoH1EYRR or to the universal language,
so called, which that industrious old polyglot
has devised. It is unqueetionably q work OF
ingenuity, patience, and scientific simplicity
and precision; and In many respects 1t pos
sibly comes nearer to being an ailab In
ternational language than anything else
OF tho sort ever constructed. The sort
OF vogue which volapuk has already
attained Ia evidence Of Its theoretical
merits. While the inventors Of similar
systems have lived and died In obscurity,
and have got from tho world only tho cold
shoulder that is the usual portion Of cranks,
ScHLEYER has become rather famous.
Thousands of enthusiastic Volapukels and
hundreds Of devoted vo~lapnkatidels revere
him az Master. An extensive propaganda
organization Is active In some countries. Tho
curious everywhere are talking Of Volap0k,
and philologists do not now ignore 1t. oreven
sneer at 1t. The Volaplk-Almanach for 1883
estimates the number Of amateurs Of this
w~orld-language at twenty thousand In Cor
many and Austria alone. It Is making head
way In Switzerland, Holland, Hungary, Italy,
France, Sweden, Russia, England, and even
in Syria and Arabia. There Is q Volapuk
society In this town, and q course OF lectures
on tho grammar and genius thereof has
been delivered recently before q class in the
College of the City Of New York. And 1t Is
q jargon all the m
1t is . jargon because the inventor has
pieced together fragments from the various
languages in use in the civilized world,
taking here q bit and there o root, here .
principle Of grammatical construction and
there q hint as to infection or conjugation.
He has levied upon not less than twenty
different tongues. The result Is q flexible,
simple, and monstrously ingenious system,
which has already yielded q vocabulary Of
about seventeen thousand word forms, while
In practical use they fall so easily and nat
urally into place that we should think two
or three months study would be enough to
render any person Of average intelligence
tolerably proficient In the written or spoken
Volapdk. Grammars, and lexicons Of tho
language are now easy to procure.
S~CHLEYRR's idea was to mako q language
sufficiently rich and full to enable the com-
mercial, diplomatic, and scientific people Of
different nations to meet on common ground
and to interchange thought. II Volap1k an
swers the purpose for which 1t was intended,
1t will be a much more generally available
means Of REORGANIZATION than Latin
was among scholars In the middle ages and
as late as tho seventeenth century. But to
the eye and to the ear 1t Is harsh, odd, and
unpoetic. The conglomeration Of material
from so many different and widely diverse
sources produces a %curiously jumbled effect.
Sometimes VolapIk looks and sounds like
bastard Greek-"enifos adelo." 1t showed
yesterday. Sometimes it looks like Japanese,
sometimes like Arabic, sometimes like
pigeon-English, sometimes like the imagi-
nary tongues invented by JONATHAN SWIFT
and assigned to the communities which Gull
LIVER visited in the course Of his travels. As
spoken. the volapdk strikes the ear with q
somewhat monotonous %sing-eong, owing to
the fact that the accent falls uniformly upon
the last syllable Of every word.
The one thing certain about this ready
made language is that 1t will not lend itself
easily to use In bellies Lettres. Polite ltera-
ture has little or nothing to expect from it.
The nine muses. will never send for a Vol
aptkatidel and take lessons In Volaptk.
No language which calls q bride a ji-gam
can ever hope to become the chosen vehicle
for poetic or imaginative thought. No lam
guage that offers the ridiculous, h~ot-potato-
in-the-mouth phrase lofob-oll. as IN equiva-
lent for the tender I love thee, the
earnest and impassioned Ich liebe dlch, or
the softly n ~resonantly persuasive 10
t'amo, can find employment in the literature
Of sentiment and imagination. VolapIk,
with its cast-iron syntax and It's dry, IN
sympathetic, uninspiring vocabulary, will
never keep measure to the music Of the Tyre,
lips. Imagine any man swearing eternal
constancy in the word ail0fob. or getting
down on his knees to ask a maiden to b.
como his ji-gami
In this important respect we must pro-
nounce volspdk to be vastly inferior to tho
Chinook jsrgon, with which 1t may fairly be
compared as an e~xpedient Of speech.
Strangely enough. nobody has yet pointed
out the very interesting ~analogies and diff
ferences between these two tongues,
both designed to serve the same pur-
pose. The Chinook was an attempt
at a universal language. 70 far as
the practical needs OF the English.
men, Frenchmen, Russians, and Indians
Of the northwest coast were concerned. But,
unlike Volapdk, which Is entirely artificial.
Chinook was a growth, q development, an
evolution, an outcome of experience and
gradually widening usage. Therefore. while
Volapik may be made to suit the cold, hard
necessities of commercial or diplomatic In
tercourse. 1t can never rival Chinook In the
expression of tender sentiment, or in It's lit
erary capabilities and availabilities.
We advise the poets, the romancers. tho
word painters, who may be dissatisfied with
the English language as a vehicle for the
ideas Of their genius, to waste no time In
learning Father SoHLEYKR's Volapuk. They
will find 1t more profitable to turn their at
tention to Chinook, for there is poetry in its
formation and music In many Of Its words.